Politicians Category

Anyone looking for videos of Baron John Sewel, 69, Deputy Speaker of the Lords, naked and snorting white powders is in luck. You might also searched under his given name: John Buttifant Sewel.

By way of a bonus for niche porno hunters, the Sun tosses in “£200-a-night hookers” (pair of), the line, as delivered by the peer, “What about trying the big one?”, a spot of casual racism (“Asian women look innocent but you know they’re whores”) and news that the video is set in Dolphin Square, a block of flats becoming more notorious by the day.

Rod Richards, a former Conservative MP and ex-leader of the Welsh Tories, made the shocking allegation that he had seen evidence linking Sir Peter Morrison to the North Wales children’s homes case, in which up to 650 children in 40 homes were sexually, physically and emotionally abused over 20 years.

Mr Richards also linked a second leading Tory grandee – now dead – to the scandals at homes including Bryn Estyn and Bryn Alyn Hall, both near Wrexham.

He said official documents had identified the pair as frequent, unexplained visitors to the care homes. Mr Richards – who helped establish the inquiry that unearthed the scale of the abuse – said bluntly: ‘What I do know is that Morrison was a paedophile. And the reason I know that is because of the North Wales child abuse scandal.’

Today the Times says sources claimed Morrison had “a penchant for small boys”.

The paper says MI5 did question Morrison, the Conservative MP for Chester and deputy chairman of the party. Papers found in Westminster reveal that Sir Antony Duff, head of the Security Service, to Sir Robert Armstrong, the cabinet secretary, said Morrison was not a big deal.

Duff died in 200o. His obituary inThe Guardiancalled him “the epitome of the wise public servant on whom Whitehall’s ship of state has traditionally relied”.

Armstrong lives. He was Cabinet Secretary during the premierships of Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair.

Now age 88, he tells the Times:

“My official business was the protection of national security. I have to stress that there was nothing like evidence in this case. There was just a shadow of a rumour. It’s impossible to take investigative action on shadows of rumours.”

These days you accept rumour as fact and beat the dead bodies with sticks.

“If there is some reason to think a crime has been committed, then people like the cabinet secretary are not to start poking their noses into it. It’s for the police to do that.”

But who directs the police?

In July 1990, Morrison was appointed Thatcher’s parliamentary private secretary (PPS).

Keeping Up With The Danczuks: in today’s instalment of the twitter-based reality TV show, MP Simon Danczuk says:

“I must have been hell to live with. I’d say horrible things to Karen”

Simon and Karen Danczuk are doing their bit to change perceptions of their native Rochdale. Once a place where secrets of sex and power were locked away to fester, Rochale is now where dirty laundry is hung still moist and run up the flagpole.

Carol Midgley meets Simon in Manchester. Will the Danczuks be reconciling?

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he says, sadly. “No, we’ve been through too much; too much water’s gone under the bridge. It’s not going to happen — but that’s life.”

“There was no sex and we weren’t even kissing by the end. I stopped fancying him and we had no spark left. I used to think, ‘If he is cheating, then he’s not coming to me for it’, which was a relief.”

We can only wonder what else Karen would reveal were she doing interviews:

Demure Karen then reaches further into the knife drawer at the Rochdale home she and Simon used to share:

“People think he’s really calm and lovely but there’s a side to him they don’t see”

If only. It was only yesterday Simon was talking to the Sun. When they’re not slagging each other off on twitter, the Danczuks aappears to have the Sun on speed dial. Why they should talk with the Sun is something we can only wonder about.

“He’s always loved attention. All through our relationship I felt like I was the one in the background. It felt like everything we did was because he was in the public eye. I remember as I married him thinking, ‘When I do this next time I want a big white wedding with all the works’.”

Extra salami and a stuffed crust it is, Karen. Only the best for you.

Karen contionues to deny having an extra-marital affair with a personal trainer called Ben:

But Karen has taken a swipe at Ben’s wife Natalie, who has so far remained silent over the scandal. She claims the couple broke up themselves “way back in May” and also accused Natalie of having “fake boobs”.

Natalie has yet to pose for an accusation-busing selfie. But Karen’s breasts are ‘real’ – in facts, many think they are the most authentic thing about her.

Karen Danczuk might have the t*ts, but it’s her estranged husband MP Simon Danczuk’s supplying the titillation. He’s been talking to the Sun, which thunders:

I fear she shared her selfie with Ben for five months, says Simon Danczuk

EXCLUSIVE: MP’s hell over claims of his wife’s affair

From being ‘campaigning Simon Danczuk’, the MP for Rochdale has in recent days earned a new epithet – he is “DEVASTATED Simon Danczuk”.

And his talking to the Sun will come a surprise for the Indy’s Simon Kelner, who opines loftily:

How he must have been anguished to see the most intimate details of his marriage picked over in lurid detail, and with lip-smacking salaciousness, in the pages of our national newspapers (not this one, obviously).

KAREN Danczuk spent more than seven hours with her personal trainer as he stayed the night at her house. Athletic Ben Bate sneaked into the 31-year-old’s marital home late on Thursday — just five days after she split with husband Simon, a Labour MP.

Photos of the man are captioned:

Karen works out in the park with personal trainer Ben Ben outside Karen’s house on Wednesday evening He walks into the house Looking out of the window shortly before midnight Personal trainer leaves in the early hours

“He was overwhelmed that suddenly it was all about me! I think there was a bit of jealousy….It used to be all about Simon. I used to be his plus-one, but it changed dramatically and became more about me. Even at MP events, I became the star. Simon probably just felt a little taken aback.”

The Sun adds:

Before her rise to fame, Karen was happy in her role as MP’s wife bringing up their two boys Milton and Sebastian in Rochdale, Gtr Manchester.

Odd. Yesterday the Mirror said her sons were called Milton and Maurice? still, who cares about that pair when you have pneumatic Karen and her tweets.

“There was no blazing argument. There was a lot of tension that built up over time with how our lives were becoming very different. We just knew it couldn’t go on. There was a moment the next morning where Simon back-tracked and we both cried but my mind was made up by then. I finished it for the both of us.”

Karen went solo:

“It was difficult for him for me to suddenly be in the limelight, but I’ve realised he’s got his career and now it’s time for me to not only focus on the boys but also my career.”

And her career seems to be suppoted by the Sun, whose agont aunt Dear Deirdre opines:

…this sad story of a relationship foundering because a high-profile husband can’t stand the limelight shifting to his missus is pretty familiar.

Is that what happened? Who knows. All we know is that a vain, media-friendly MP and his flirty, fame-seeking wife are in the news. A stint on Love Island or Big Brother beckons.

And it should be entertaining. As Camilla Long wrote:

I have never met a family so chaotic. (During the interview she cries and then Simon cries, both swear and loudly slag other people off and everyone behaves as if this is a perfectly normal Sunday morning.)

Amran Hussain, 29, a Labour candidate for the North East Hampshire in the recent election, has visited the beach where Seifeddine Rezgui murdered 38 tourists on Friday. He took a selfie. The spot where so many lost their lives became an ‘I was there’ moment.

“Selfies are not banned. I don’t see anything wrong with it. We were not capturing a happy moment, we were very distressed after what happened and we went down to the beach for 30 minutes to show solidarity. We laid flowers and wrote a tribute and prayed to those who lost their lives in the horrific massacre. We would have asked someone else to take a picture of us, but we were in the moment and we wanted to take a picture with the tribute and flowers we had put down. It has been taken completely out of context. It was all very upsetting and we just wanted to have a reminder of what happened. I just happened to be using a selfie stick as that is what I always use.”

Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has conceded that if her decision not to prosecute Lord Janner with child sex offences is reversed by a formal review she will abide by that ruling…

She’d have no choice.

Ms Saunders told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is a victims right to review going on. We have a process which has been activated and we are waiting for the outcome of that. The outcome of that could be that my decision is upheld or it could be that it is reversed. And I have said that I will abide by that advice that we’ve sought and I will abide by that advice.”

Top lawyer vows to sticks to rules. Read all about it!

The Times: “Janner ‘will face justice’ over child sex abuse claims”

Will. Not could?

The decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute Lord Janner over allegations that he was a serial child abuser is set to be overturned.

Wow!

A senior barrister who has spent several weeks examining the evidence as part of an independent review has concluded that there should be a hearing — the first step towards a full trial, according to the Daily Mail.

Ah! Janner is 86. He’s ill. How long will the hearing process take?

Daily Mail: “Janner WILL face justice: Top barrister to recommend DPP’s decision is over-ruled so case against Labour peer IS heard in court”

The development will pile pressure on Mrs Saunders, who has suffered a torrid two months amid questions over her handling of the Janner affair. She is expected to face renewed calls from critics to consider her position.

She looks doomed.

The extraordinary twist in the case comes after a group of Janner’s alleged victims applied for a formal review of the decision not to charge him. The appeal was launched after Mrs Saunders ruled the peer should not be charged on health grounds, despite saying there was enough evidence to prosecute him for 22 sex offences against nine people. She also ruled out holding a trial of facts, which can be used when suspects are unable to enter pleas or instruct lawyers.

Adding:

More than a dozen people came forward to claim he abused them during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. His family has repeatedly denied he is connected to any wrongdoing.

“I am pleased to hear the suggestion that Janner will finally face justice: the alleged victims deserve this. The allegations against him are horrific, and we need to hear the facts before a court.

“All suggestions are that Saunders reached the wrong conclusion in April and this is not the first time she has made a major mistake, She has struggled in some of her decisions to pursue journalists through the courts, too. Her job is all about judgment.”

Lord Greville Janner of Braunstone: a round-up of media reporting on the Labour peer mired in the story of Westminster peados. It’s been 67 days since the Crown Prosecution Sevice decided not to prosecute Lord Janner on gounds of his failing health.

The Sun: “Peer ‘raped kids in Parliament’ MP accuses Lord Janner”

That is some accusation. And it’s been made by Labour MP Simon Danczuk.

The campaigning MP’s comments came in a Westminster Hall debate – giving him protection from being sued for libel.

Any evidence to support the claims?

He blasted: “The shocking thing is that the CPS admits that the witnesses are not unreliable, it admits that Janner should face prosecution but refuses to bring a case. I know the police are furious about this and rightly so. Anyone who has heard the accusations will be similarly outraged.”

They are not unreliable but the DPP says the defendant is.

He went on: “I have met with Leicestershire police and discussed the allegations in detail. Children being violated, raped and tortured – some in the very building in which we now sit.”

Those are allegations.

He added: “Personally I fail to see how the knowledge that a peer of the realm is a serial child abuser is not in the public interest.”

Hold on. The knowledge that he is has not been established. That’s the problem. All we have are allegations. If Danczuk is certain of Lord Janner’s giuilt then why not slap the proof in the public domain?

Lord Janner has been accused in Parliament of being a serial abuser who attacked children inside the Palace of Westminster. Labour MP Simon Danczuk said police had told him they wanted to bring 22 historical charges against Lord Janner, dating between 1969 and 1988.

Today’s police do. But yesterday’s police did not.

Lord Janner’s family has said that the peer “is entirely innocent of any wrongdoing”.

His innocence must be presumed, right?

The Rochdale MP continued: “If Lord Janner really is too ill to face prosecution, then why can’t the courts establish this with a fitness to plead process? This would clear up doubts that still linger, for example why he was still visiting parliament on official visits after he was declared unfit to face justice.”

Social Work Today, 10th May 1977

Yes, indeed. The MP for Rochdale, Cyril Smith’s old haunt and the palce where paedo gangs operated for years. The culture of denial has led to how many people in authority being arrrested and jailed? None.

Mr Danczuk was repeatedly warned by the chair of the debate, Conservative MP Anne Main, against criticising Lord Janner. A former DPP-turned-Labour MP, Sir Keir Starmer, said: “The decision before the DPP was not an easy decision. It was a stark and difficult choice between two unattractive approaches. We should respect the independence she brought to the decision making, and the fact she’s had that decision out for a review. To that extent I think we should inhibit our comments on the case.”

“The official charges are 14 indecent assaults of a male under 16 between 1969 and 1988; two indecent assaults between 1984 and 1988; four counts of buggery of a male under 16 between 72 and 87, two counts of buggery between 1977 and 1988. My office has spoken to a number of the alleged victims and heard their stories. I cannot overstate the effect that this abuse has had on their lives…

“The Director of Public Prosecutions has said that Lord Janner will not offend again. But the failure to prosecute Lord Janner offends every principle of justice – he may not abuse again but the legacy of the abuse continues. His victims needs the truth [sic] and they need to be heard.”

Lord Janner: a round-up of media reporting on the Labour peer mired in the story of Westminster peados. It’s been 66days since the Crown Prosecution Sevice decided not to prosecute Lord Janner on gounds of his failing health.

The Indy: “Ed Miliband was urged to throw out Lord Janner over ‘stomach-churning’ child abuse allegations five months before Labour suspended him”

Who did the urging? And whay does the Express ssays Miliband ws urged “six months” before Janner was suspended?

The warning came from one of his own MPs – Simon Danczuk – who sent a letter to the former leader in October last year to urge him to quickly suspend Lord Janner after three senior officers from Leicestershire police had disclosed serious alleged abuse to him.

Danczuk loves to blow his own horn.

“You couldn’t describe the action that has been taken by the party as swift and decisive,” he told Channel 4 News. “The nature of the allegation is so serious that really decisive action was required. I think they should expel him from the party. I think the allegations are that serious that they should carry out a short, sharp investigation which I am sure would conclude that he should be expelled from the party.”

We’d like to know more about this ‘sharp investigation’. Who would investigate? What facts would they have? How far back would the investigation reach – Lord Janner has been accused of offences during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s? Danczuk’s idea of an investigation to reach the “sure” conclusion of guilt is an affront to justice. It’s self-serving, PR-driven balls.

Lord Greville Janner: a look at news on the Labour peer embroiled in allegations that he abused children. He maintains his innocence. It’s been 58 days since the Crown Prosecution Sevice decided not to prosecute Lord Janner on gounds of his failing health.

With no actual news to report, we make do with a tenuous link between Janner and Michael Jackson. In keeping with the story of Westminster peados, like most of the people implicated, Jackson is dead. And he never read the letter Janner wrote him.

Greville Janner wrote to superstar Michael Jackson congratulating him on being cleared of child sex charges… The Labour peer and former Leicester West MP wrote the letter shortly after the singer was cleared by an American jury of molesting a 13-year-old.

A number of national newspapers reported at the weekend that Lord Janner wrote to Jackson, who died aged 50 in 2009, on personalised House of Lords paper in 2005.

He is said to have passed the letter to former child actor Mark Lester and asked him to give it to Jackson.

What he wrote was:

“I was so very pleased at the news of your acquittal. What a terrible time you have endured. You know how much I enjoyed and appreciated meeting you at the Universal Studios and in the UK – and especially on that wonderful day in Parliament and the journey to Exeter. So I send you my very best wishes – and hope you will return to London before long and that I should have the pleasure of seeing you once again before long.”

In June 2002 Janner gave Jackson, spoon-bender Uri Geller and US magician David Blaine a tour of the Houses of Parliament. Lester is chiefly famous for having played Oliver Twist in the 1968 film.

Says Mr Lester:

“Janner knew I was friends with Michael. He gave me the letter and asked me to give it to him. I stuffed it in my pocket and never got round to it. I stumbled across it while clearing my house. What he said was inappropriate.”

If there was ever word that sums up this decade it is ‘inappropriate’. Why is it inappropriate for Janner to have to written to the then world’s biggest star? I mean, did you see Jackson’s fans back then?

Najh Ali speaks to some forty Michael Jackson fans who converged on the Santa Barbara Courthouse to show their support for Jackson January 15, 2004 in Santa Barbara, California.

Hundreds of Michael Jackson fans converged on Neverland Ranch for a candlelight vigil in support of Jackson January 15, 2004 in Santa Ynez, California

Michael Jackson fan, Bianca Martinez, eight-months-old, drinks from her baby bottle as she wears a hat with the message ‘Innocent Like Me’ while sitting in her stroller outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse at the Michael Jackson child molestation trial June 9, 2005 in Santa Maria, California. Jackson is charged in a 10-count indictment with molesting a boy, plying him with liquor and conspiring to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion.

Michael Jackson fan Sean Paterson

Michael Jackson fan Seany O’Kane displays a message of support

There were a few naysayers:

And it was huge news.

But Lester is agog not that Jackson was given a tour of Westminster, but that Janner wrote him a letter:

“Michael Jackson was hounded for much of his life over these allegations and was then found not guilty. No one should congratulate Michael on being cleared let alone a QC and peer. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘Well done, you got away with it’.”

No. It isn’t. Jackson was found not guilty. Janner said it must have been a burden. He never once said ‘Nice one, you got away with it.’

The story of Westminster peadophiles has taken on a life of its own. The alleged abuse is said to have occured over years. This longevity suggests a culture of denial and, to some, a conspiracy of depraved men working together to maintain a secret. But facts are now so thin we get stories of a Wacko Jacko fan letter being passed off as news. In place of evidence of child rape in the shadow of power, we get news of ‘inappropriate’ words. ‘Innocent until proven innocent’, says one of the pro-Jackson banners. To which we would add a new one: ‘Guilty when dead.’

The Sun continues to bill SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon as a dangeous loon to readers south of the border and hero to those north of it.

Sturgeon’s been on The Daily Show. The Scottish Sun reports:

NICOLA STURGEON had viewers of The Daily Show in stitches last night; days after the programmes website wrongly billed her as a COMEDIAN.

She told host Jon Stewart: “You billed as a comedian – so you’ve raised all these expectations that I’m going to be funny. And I’m a politician, and as you know, politicians are rarely very funny.”

And:

Host Jon Stewart, whose trademark style is to mercilessly tease guests, asked the Scots politician “You think you’re Saddam Hussein? You get 99%?” after she joked she had “ordered an inquiry” into why the SNP won just 56 out of 59 seats in the general election.

Lord Greville Janner: a look at news on the Labour peer embroiled in allegations that he abused children. He maintains his innocence. It’s been 52 days since the Crown Prosecution Sevice decided not to prosecute Lord Janner on gounds of his failing health.

Police in Scotland are understood to be investigating claims Labour peer Lord Janner abused a boy there in the 1970s. Det Ch Supt Lesley Boal said Police Scotland officers were investigating a historical complaint – but did not confirm a name.

As ever, facts are thinner than Theresa May’s smile.

BBC home affairs correspondent Tom Symonds said the allegation had first been made in 1991 by a Leicester man who told police that Greville Janner sexually abused him during the 1970s – including in Scotland.

We’re told that Leicestershire police investigated and found Janner had no case to answer. And now a mere 14 years later the allegations resueface. The accused man is now old. He and his victims are denied a court trial. And all we get is a stink.

Now Scottish police are investigating.

“Because Scotland has a separate and independent prosecutor, it would be able to make its own decision about whether to charge Lord Janner,” he added.

Is there new evidence to warrant a charge that wasn’t available to police in 1991? Did the Scottish police investigate Janner? Questions and more questions. And with no court date, there is no chance to having them answered with satisfaction.

So that’s two police forces investigating Janner, the Crown Prosecution Service reviewing the Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision that m’lord would to be unable to take part in his defence due to his poor health, and Justice Lowell Goddard looking at the Labour peer as part od her independent inquiry into child sex abuse.

Yeah, that’s all.

Lord Janner is 86. He says he’s innocent.

But the Mail picks up a scent.

Daily Mail: “With a school party on a Commons visit in 1976, two Labour grandees Greville Janner and George Thomas who ‘abused children'”

Smiling broadly, two Labour grandees welcome a party of young schoolboys to the Commons. Since this photograph was taken in 1976, Greville Janner and George Thomas have been exposed as alleged paedophiles.

Exposed. Alleged. Can you be exposed as an alleged anything? What happened to those barriers to guilt?

The pair, later ennobled as Lord Janner and Viscount Tonypandy, have been accused of preying on children and yesterday campaigners said there was growing evidence a Labour paedophile ring operated at Westminster.

Is the Mail serious in labelling Labour the Paedos Party? If it is, were Liberal Sir Cyril Smith and Sir Tory Peter Hayman wannabe Labour members?

Thomas, Commons Speaker before becoming a peer, is said to have propositioned young men in his official grace and favour apartment in Parliament. He died aged 88 in 1997, but is now the subject of investigations by British Transport Police over an incident on a train in 1959, and by South Wales Police into a claim he raped a nine-year-old boy.

How can that be proven?

The alleged rape victim came forward to say he was abused at home in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the MP, who had befriended his foster parents.
A third former Labour MP, the late Leo Abse, has also been named as an alleged abuser.

Abse is dead. Smith is dead. Hayman is dead. Thomas is dead.

Yesterday campaigning Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who exposed the Cyril Smith scandal, said: ‘If George Thomas abused a nine-year-old boy, then you can be certain it was not a one-off. He would have abused others. The links between these people are coming together like a jigsaw puzzle, and one does get the impression there was a Labour network of paedophiles.’

If. Certain. We’re digging up the bodies to beat them with sticks. It’s only when the depraved grandees die that their guilt becomes a certainty. The pieces from Danczuk’s jigsaw puzzle crumble like dead skin when touched.

The close bond between Janner and Thomas is clear from the black-and-white photograph unearthed by the Mail, which was taken on June 22, 1976. Janner had arranged for 70 pupils from his Leicester West constituency to visit the Commons. There is no suggestion any of the children in the photo were abused…

The claims about Thomas, a one-time headmaster and Methodist lay preacher, surfaced last year. His victim, now aged 56 and living in Australia, said: ‘I was raped by George Thomas in Cardiff. I was about nine. He spent a lot of time at my house.’

He alleged the abuse also happened at another address in the city. A second victim says he was sexually abused on a train from Paddington to Aberystwyth when he was 22 and Thomas was 50.

Thomas, an MP from 1945 to 1983, was a secretary of state for Wales in Harold Wilson’s government and presided over the 1969 investiture of the Prince of Wales. He also read the lesson at Prince Charles’s wedding to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

In 2001, Leo Abse MP spoke to the Sunday Times about helping with George Thomas MP’s young blackmailer:

“Over the years, given his exposed position, it was inevitable that he would fall victim to blackmail. On one occasion, after a distraught recounting to me of the pressure upon him, I insisted I would meet and deal with the young criminal in his constituency into whose hands he had fallen.

“My reputation in Cardiff’s criminal underworld stood me in good stead in dealing with the wretch. As a lawyer, I had often acted in the courts on behalf of the local prosecution department, and even more frequently, I had defended the city’s gangsters. As one-time chairman of the watch committee, I had the duty of supervising the local police.

“The blackmailing cur, therefore, had no doubt that, unless he desisted, I would carry out my threat to ensure he was put behind bars for 10 years; shortly after our encounter he found it was politic to quit the city.”

The Mail forgets to say that Thomas was chairman of National Children’s Home (NCH) in 1983.

Tony Blair is an idiot. Tony Blair says Holocaust denial should be a crime.

The idiot thinks Holocaust deniers are so powerful their voices must be made taboo. He says their ridiculous, wholly racist views should not be debated. He says anyone for whom the Holocaust is fact is so weak-minded, sensitive and shockable they will be undone by an anti-Semite who says it was all a lie.

Tony Blair champions censorship. He denies free speech. He denies the right to offend and to be offended.

He makes Jewish suffering the taboo to be challenged.

He makes martyrs of people who should be pariahs.

He is the enemy of freedom.

Here’s the thing, Tony: the Holocaust deniers are just the people who were on the other side. When the war ended, it was not the death of anti-Semitism. That horror just mutates; the bigots find a new excuse to get the Jews.

Blair, who wears his Christian god on his sleeve, is keen to be on the side of the good, taking on the scum who attack Jews, making liars of the murdered and using their suffering as a cosh to beat them – what else is the comparing of Israeli Army action to the Nazis but fometing the idea that the Jews never learn and are deserving of collective punishment?

The anti-Semites deny the Holocaust was a lie but think it a great idea.

Tony Blair uses the Holocaust to make a case for his own moral goodness. For him the Holocaust it part of a ceremonial industry in affirmation.

The Holocaust according to Tony Blair is not about the Jews – it is all about him, a perma-tanned beacon of State-approved history and an illiberal enemy of free speech.

The former Liberal Democrat Party leader Charles Kennedy has died at his home in Fort William, Highland, Scotland aged 55. He brought a humanity not generally accepted or too well understood in 1983 when he entered the Westminster Parliament at 23-years-old and then the youngest MP. He continued to represent his home territory for 32 years and lost his seat to the Scottish National Party in May’s General Election.

He rose through the ranks to in 2001 lead his party to its strongest ever membership of the National Parliament.

Charles Kennedy leader of The Liberal Democrats wipes his brow during his speech at the party conference on September 22, 2005 in Blackpool, England. During a passionate speech Mr Kennedy pledged to lead his party into the next election and called on prime minister Tony Blair to make a timetable of the withdrawl of British troops from Iraq.

In what many found to be a magnificent stand, Charles Kennedy fought against all-comers from other major parties over the proposed invasion and war in Iraq. There is little doubt he was right in every respect in his then dire predictions of what was to follow. When it finally struggles into print. the long-delayed Chilcot Inquiry may very well be his finest epitaph.

Kennedy’s humanity had its fragility and alcohol abuse destroyed his professional and home life.

eptember 1986: Charles Kennedy MP at the SDP conference.

What was totally unique about him was he could attend social gatherings in Highland Village halls and stately country homes alike and very soon be flat out and sleeping off excesses on the hall floor or in the temporary bar. The evening’s guests would step over him while the festivities went on and all would ensure someone saw he was safely delivered home at the end of the night.

iberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy appears on a set of playing cards produced specifically for the Liberal Democrat Conference at the Brighton Centre on September 24, 2003 in Brighton, England.

His friends and neighbours accepted him for what he was and understood he suffered from the worst of all conditions – West Highland Disease – otherwise recognised as chronic alcoholism. Above all else he was loved and respected as a Highlander doing the best he could for his voters and country alike. The Nationalist fervour now endemic in Scotland swept him to one side. He was devastated by the loss of his constituency his mainstay support.

Just this once the cliche “We will never see his like again” may very well be true and we all are the poorer for the loss of his total honesty, essential decency and… yes, even those frailties which destroyed him.

To New Zealand, where Member of Parliament Ron Mark is addressing the House. The opposing benches are jeering him. He looks their way and speaks softly. What’s that? We didn’t catch it. But it was picked up loud and clear by Parliament TV’s sign language interpreter who relayed the words to viewers back home. She’s making a guest appearance as part of Sign Language Awareness Week.

The Mirror Group titles have been found guilty of phone hacking. We’ve been listening out for what Labour MP Chris Bryant has to say about it. When Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp was found guilty of the same, Bryant, a phone-hacking victim, was verbose and demanding:

“They argued for a long time that there were very few victims – that there was just one rogue reporter – that they had done a full investigation and all that proves to be untrue. One of my anxieties is the police didn’t do a full investigation in 2006, 2009 and 2010 when lots of people were calling for a full investigation. Consequently we still don’t know the full level of the criminality that went on at the News of the World and in fact many of the victims themselves don’t know they were involved.I think this is just the beginning of the story. I’m seeking a judicial review of the Metropolitan Police’s activity. I have a big anxiety about why the Metropolitan Police didn’t do a proper investigation themselves.”

….

“The next thing is, I’m writing to all the non-executive directors, including the former Spanish Prime Minister Mr Aznar and others of News Corp, to ask them what they knew, when they knew it, what actions they took to ensure that their newspaper was complying with police investigations,” Bryant told Reuters yesterday. “What did the directors do to check on what Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson said about phone hacking back in 2003, and did they know about hush money that was paid? This company has shown itself completely unable to act within the law, and if it’s not able to do that, if it’s true as the police said on Tuesday that they had deliberately thwarted the police investigation, then I think they shouldn’t have any share in a British media organisation.”

…

“Leave aside the original criminality of hacking people’s phones – including the victims of crime who never asked to be brought into the public domain at all – it’s the cover-up, the lies. ‘This was just one reporter,’ ‘This was just one newspaper,’ when actually we know it was endemic in the whole of News International.”

They were “drunk on power”:

….

“There was a major cover-up at News International which stretched right up to the very highest levels of the company, as we know even up to James Murdoch.And that, in the end, I suspect, will prove to have been the biggest crime.”

“This is designed to try and protect Rebekah Brooks, and I believe that if she had a shred of decency after what we have heard about Milly Dowler’s phone being hacked, which happened on her watch as editor, she should have resigned by now. Everything that’s been announced today just goes to show that there’s been a cover-up, that Parliament has been misled, that police have been corrupted, that police investigations were undermined. This strategy of chucking first journalists, then executives and now a whole newspaper overboard isn’t going to protect the person at the helm of the ship.”

Chris Bryant has been far less vocal about the Labour-supporting Mirror’s crimes.

The Sun says “Good riddance” to Hull City’s Jake Livermore who faces the “sack over drugs shame”. A routine drugs test revealed traces of cocaine in Livermore’s urine. The club suspended him. His future is uncertain. Livermore is an idiot.

But for the Sun to attack the player who took a non-performance enhancing drug that cheats only his teammates is lamentable. Cheering the idea that he should be sacked for his foolishness is weak.

The Times has news that an MP who abused boy in 1970s let off with a police caution.

A Conservative MP escaped prosecution for child abuse in the 1970s even though he admitted indecent assault… Victor Montagu was cautioned by police after he assured them that he would avoid contact with the victim. The disclosure will lend weight to allegations of an establishment cover-up of historical child sex abuse.

Montagu was an MP for South Dorset. That’s Alexander Victor Edward Paulet Montagu, also known as Viscount Hinchingbrooke and the Earl of Sandwich.

He indecently assaulted a boy for two years.

And he is DEAD. Of course he is. Because only the dead get judged.

The Guardian says the decision not to prosecute him was made by the Dorset and Bournemouth police force and Sir Norman Skelhorn, QC, the former head of the crown proseuction service.

Sir Norman also decided that Cyril Smith, the Liberal politican, should not face charges after eight men went to police in 1970 claiming that he had abused them. He died in 2010.

That’s was Sir Cyril Smith until he died and was duly found guilty of being a nonce.

A letter from prosecutors in 1972 said:

“The assaults, which are admitted, are not of themselves very serious, and if Mr Montagu is prepared to take the excellent advice given to him by Detective Chief Inspector [Jack] Newman and avoid any contact with the boy I do not think proceedings are called for.”

The files show the boy was interviewed on 10 November 1972 after rumours that he was being sexually abused. Two officers visited Montagu at his home in Mapperton, Dorset, and interviewed him under caution. He was later charged by police with two counts of indecently assaulting a male under 16 on a number of occasions between 31 December 1970 and January 1972 and of indecently assaulting the same boy between 31 December 1971 and November 1972. He was remanded to appear at Bridport magistrates court.

But when the then chief constable of Dorset and Bournemouth, Arthur Hambleton, wrote to Skelhorn for advice on the case, prosecutors chose to give Montagu a caution instead of proceeding with a criminal trial in public.

Montagu’s son, Robert says his father abused him between the ages of seven and 11.

The abuse was finally discovered when one of Robert’s sisters realised he was sharing a bath with their father. Shortly afterwards, his mother and the family doctor sat him down and questioned him. He told them everything.

Days later, he was sent back to prep school, confused and terrified that his father would go to prison. Instead, the family decided to say nothing, protecting the reputation of the family whose motto, ironically, is ‘Post Tot Naufragia Portum’ – ‘After so many shipwrecks, a haven’.

Robert says: ‘I do think we have to take this problem more seriously – pursuing people who act in this way and not allowing them to escape. It’s easy for me to say that.

‘I let my father escape, as have all my family. But we’ve got to get tougher. I particularly want families to be active in reporting. It’s a difficult thing but it must be done. You cannot have an 11-year-old telling of abuse that had reached a zenith and not act. You must make sure that person is not in a position to do the same again.’

As Robert grew older, he realised there were others. Once he saw the paperboy go into his father’s bedroom and close the door. Victor, who died in 1995 aged 88, also abused one of Robert’s schoolfriends.

Robert says: ‘I know personally of ten (victims) and I’ve spoken with most of those. They were family friends, London contacts, Dorset contacts, holiday contacts.’

You can read the story in Robert’s book A Humour Of Love. But you can’t ask his dad if it’s all true because dad is dead.

When Chuka Umunna annunced his decsiosn to stand as Labour leader, he adressed the electorate with his video:

Celebrated and attacked for his ‘slickness’, Umanna had announced his ambitions with all the finesse of a 1970s corporate training video. It was a character recalibration up there with Ed Miliband cutting a glass while chanting ‘seven sizzling sausages simmering slowly’ in diction Brian Sewell would consider ‘intimidating’.